The White House said Friday that Russia granting political asylum to Edward Snowden would be on par with providing the National Security Agency leaker with a “propaganda platform” to further harm the United States.

During a scheduled briefing in Washington, DC Friday afternoon
shortly after Mr. Snowden issued a statement of his own from Moscow, White House
spokesperson Jay Carney said the administration’s position on the
leaker remains that he should be extradited to the US to face
charges of espionage.

“Our position on Mr. Snowden and the felony charges against
him and our belief that he ought to be returned to the United
States to face those felony charges is as it was,” Carney
told reporters during an afternoon White House press conference.

US President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin
have discussed the Snowden issue on the phone, according to
Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov.

“The telephone conversation, suggested by Washington, took
place between the Russian and the US presidents. Putin and Obama
exchanged views on questions of bilateral partnership and
security. Edward Snowden’s case was also discussed.”

Earlier, Carney confirmed that Obama had previously scheduled a
phone conversation with the Russian leader for later Friday,
during which the topic of Snowden’s plight was expected to be
addressed. Carney declined to make any comments about the phone
call before it took place, but said, “I’m sure President Putin
is aware of our views about Mr. Snowden.”

Snowden announced earlier that he was officially seeking
asylum from Russia. He has been awarded protection from a number
of countries including Venezuela and Bolivia, but flight
restrictions have left him unable to exit the transit lounge of
Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport.

“I ask for your assistance in requesting guarantees of safe
passage from the relevant nations in securing my travel to Latin
America, as well as requesting asylum in Russia until such time
as these states accede to law and my legal travel is
permitted,” Snowden wrote in a statement released early
Friday by anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks. “I will be
submitting my request to Russia today, and hope it will be
accepted favorably.”

During the address hours later across the pond, Carney said the
White House has communicated to Russia and a number of other
countries that Snowden be sent back to the US immediately.

“I would simply say that providing a propaganda platform for
Mr. Snowden runs counter to the Russian government’s previous
declarations of Russia’s neutrality, and that they have no
control over his presence in the airport,” Carney said.

“It’s also incompatible with Russia’s assurances that they do
not want Mr. Snowden to further damage US interests. But having
said that, our position also remains that we don’t believe this
should — and we don’t want it to — do harm to our important
relationship with Russia, and we continue to discuss with Russia
our strongly held view that there is absolutely legal
justification for him to be expelled, for him to be returned to
the United States, to face the charges that have been brought
against him for the unauthorized leaking of classified
information,” the spokesman said.

When asked if there would be any repercussions with regards to
US/Russia relations if Snowden’s latest asylum request is
granted, Carney told reporters, “I’m not going to speculate
about something that hasn’t happened.”

“What I would say is we don’t believe this issue should do
harm to the relation between Russia and the United States, and we
are working with the Russians and have made clear to the Russians
our views about the fact that Mr. Snowden has been charged with
very serious crimes and that he should be returned to the United
States,” Carney said.

Back home, said the spokesman, Snowden will “be granted full
due process and every right available to him as a United States
citizen facing our justice system under the Constitution.”

“He is accused of leaking classified information, has been
charged with three felony counts and should be returned to the
United States where he will be afforded full due process,”
said Carney.

Supporters of the whistleblower have argued otherwise, however,
and have cited the treatment of WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning
as a reason to keep Snowden far away from the clutch of American
authorities. Manning, who is currently on trial for his own leaks
in Ft. Meade, Maryland, spent roughly ten months in isolation
within a military brig in northern Virginia upon being arrested
in 2010 on suspicion of cooperating with WikiLeaks. In all his
pre-trial detainment extended for over three full years and
included treatment that a special rapporteur for the United
Nations has condemned as tantamount with torture.

“We know from at least three national security reporters that
their sources are hesitant to speak to them,” WikiLeaks
founder Julian Assange said in a conference call with RT last
month, “and explicitly cite the treatment of Bradley Manning
as a reason as to why they are hesitant to disclose abuses by the
United States government in the national security sector.”

“So already the Manning prosecution is harming the quality of
Western Democracy and the quality of reporting in the press,”
added Assange. “It is clear to me at this stage that Mr.
Snowden will be very aggressively — is being very aggressively —
pursued by the US national security sector.”

Assange himself has been holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in
London for over a year awaiting safe passage to Latin America
where he has also been granted asylum but unable to exit the
building without risking arrest.

In his statement issued through WikiLeaks Friday, Snowden said he
was appealing to human rights organizations since he believes
that the US has committed multiple constitutional violations and
infringed on Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights by preventing him from traveling to the countries that
have granted him protection.

“These dangerous escalations represent a threat not just to
the dignity of Latin America, but to the basic rights shared by
every person, every nation, to live free from persecution, and to
seek and enjoy asylum,” said Snowden.

When asked Friday if the White House is engaged in an unlawful
campaign to deny Snowden “his right to seek asylum,”
Carney smirked and said, “No, it is not.”

“He has been charged under the law with three felonies — very
serious crimes — and every aspect of the United States system of
justice is available to him upon his return to the US to face
those charges,” said Carney. If Snowden is sent back to
America, he insisted, he will “face justice in a system that
affords defendants all the rights that every American citizen
enjoys.”